


By the moon and the tides the waves will come

by rufflefeather



Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Angst, F/M, M/M, Unhappy Ending
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-04-23
Updated: 2012-04-23
Packaged: 2017-11-04 03:58:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 950
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/389497
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rufflefeather/pseuds/rufflefeather
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It doesn’t take much to unhinge a destiny.</p>
            </blockquote>





	By the moon and the tides the waves will come

**Author's Note:**

  * For [mojaunicorn](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=mojaunicorn).



> When I read the prompt (third person minor character POV), I was thinking snarky servant rolling his eyes a lot with inner monologue of DUDES GET A ROOM. Instead there is this. Thank you M for the beta!
> 
> Caillean is the first High Priestess of Avalon in Marion Zimmer Bradley’s book ‘Lady of Avalon’. She is the one to shroud the isle in mists only those with sufficient magic can lift. I’m taking her name for this story and like to have this tidbit in mind while I write but it can be disregarded completely. Just want to give credit where it’s due. In my story she’s young and raised as a servant in Camelot.

In the world of humankind, the tides of power are turning.   
  
Only a few moments in time are significant enough to be noticed by those who live through the stretch of the ages. The discovery of fire was one. The disappearance of magic from the land of mortals will be another.   
  
Avalon is a bridge between this world and the next and when Caillean dreams of it, it is always shrouded in mist. She sees a small boat with a woman holding her arms up high, sleeves of her white robe slipping past her elbows. The mists part and then the dream ends.  
  
She dreams of other things. Of men in armor with red plumes on their helmets, of bruises left on her pale skin, leaving an ache much deeper than she can yet understand. She dreams of dark days to come, of loss but also of friendship and love. She sees the eyes of a small boy, over and over again, but it is too early for that.  
  
Now Caillean lives in Camelot, her future nothing more than a shadow in her sleep. She keeps quiet, tells no one of the premonitions or the images she sometimes sees in the water before she dips the bucket in. She grows callouses on her palms like all the other serving women even thought she knows Morgana has magic before anyone else does. She suppresses the urge to drop her linens and run to the boy who walks into Camelot with nothing but a smile and a bag over his back.  
  
 _Emrys_ , she wants to tell him,  _beware of the choices you’ll make._  
  
She doesn’t. She watches him walk up to the physician’s tower with a feeling of pride and profound sorrow.   
  
Caillean watches a Prince turn into a King from where she’s kneeling as she scrubs the same floor year after year. She sees the pain in the sorcerer’s eyes every time he lies while his love only roots deeper.  
  
 _Don’t,_  she wants to tell him,  _that way only lies heartache and suffering._  
  
When the physician is taken from his chambers, she wants to intervene, but doesn’t. This moment too, must come to pass.   
  
“Merlin. I’ve had my heart broken enough already today. I don’t want to lose another friend.”  
  
The water ripples and Caillean sighs.   
  
 _Oh Arthur,_  she thinks,  _your heartbreak has only just begun._  
  
She had barred the Catha’s way out of Camelot, already drawing on power she had not yet come to posses.   
  
 _If the physician comes to harm, Emrys’s revenge will be brutal._  
  
 _You know who Emrys is._  
  
 _I know who he will become._  
  
 _I will not harm one with a future such as yours. And I will not kill Gaius. But I must know who Emrys is._  
  
 _May he be merciful then, when he finds you._  
  
 _So he is dangerous._  
  
Caillean hadn’t answered but she thinks of those words as the water reflects only her face. It is a plain face, framed with hair not quite black.   
  
The danger lies in the web Merlin has spun. The web to conceal so he can protect. So he can love without being rejected. He turns to dust that what stands between him and his destiny, burying the guilt beneath a blanket of righteousness.   
  
One day the blanket will fold and all the pain and deceit will be revealed. Caillean has seen the outcome of this moment and hopes, not for the first time, that her visions are wrong. They seldom are.  
  
She watches as the spell draws around Guinevere like a cloak of spun magic, making her betray her King. She sees the pain in the King’s eyes as he banishes her from his land.  
  
 _Don’t,_  she wants to tell him,  _her heart belongs to the other, but her choice is you._  
  
And it isn’t as if Arthur’s heart is undivided.   
  
When they run and run and run after Morgana takes Camelot, Caillean feels more than sees Merlin’s heart break at leaving Gaius behind.   
  
“Come,” Merlin says, taking her hand and clinging to it as if he wants to physically feel he is saving  _someone_. She knows it is not her hand he wants to hold but the other is too large to fit into one palm.   
  
 _Keep your heart locked,_  she wants to tell him,  _because no tree can stand without roots._  But they run and run still, and Caillean has no breath even if she had courage.  
  
The campfire is cold as if the King’s heart sucks all the heat from the world just to keep it beating. When Caillean fills a bucket and hands it to Merlin, he sees her vision reflect. It seems Guinevere’s palm does hold a hand no one can touch.   
  
“You have to run,” Merlin tells Caillean on a breath that shivers the ashes from his fingertips. “Tomorrow. Keep running.”  
  
“Merlin,” she says.  _No choice would ever have been the right one,_  she doesn’t say.  
  
“I know.”  
  
Gently, she flutters a kiss to Merlin’s lips.   
  
Arthur’s eyes window the want etched in Merlin’s soul.  
  
Something shifts in the air when Arthur’s eyes close. Something is buried deep down where even the roots of a tree couldn’t reach.   
  
Only when Caillean lies with a lifetime lived and bones dry with age, she’ll know one kiss can turn the wheels of time. She’ll know Arthur let Merlin go that night, wanting a servant to find love where a King never can.   
  
Arthur breaks his own heart as well as Merlin’s with a heart that was never his.   
  
While a past can be contemplated and a future predicted, the present is always dark and so it is, this night, a destiny turns to dust.

**Author's Note:**

> [Here at LJ](http://merlin-canon.livejournal.com/5552.html)


End file.
